Hi All,

I need some clarifications on Recoverable Items Folder.

Versions: If either litigation hold or single item recovery is enabled and If a user modifies an item, a copy of the original item is placed in the Recoverable Items\Versions folder, by a process called copy-on-write page protection. This folder isnt visible to end users. (Visible via MFCMAPI though)

I dont seem to be practically achieve this with Single Item Recovery Enabled.

The Versions folder stays empty irrespective of edits(saves) I make on emails located in Inbox, Deleted Items or elsewhere.

I would really appreciate some light here on how to get this going.

NOTE:- Deletions and Purges folder are working just fine.

Regards,

Sa

Hi,

According to Microsoft document, the Recoverable Items folder resides in the non-IPM subtree of each mailbox. The non-IPM subtree is a storage area within the mailbox that contains operational data about the mailbox. This subtree isn't visible to users using Outlook, Microsoft Office Outlook Web App, or other email clients. More details about it, please refer to: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364755(v=exchg.150).aspx

We can run below command to get status about Recoverable Items folder:
Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity "alias" -FolderScope RecoverableItems | Format-List

Thanks

Hi,

All the information and details provided by Allen Wang is correct.

In Exchange 2013, single item recovery is disabled when a mailbox is created. If Single Item Recovery is enabled, messages that are permanently deleted by the user are retained in the Recoverable Items Folder of the mailbox until the deleted item retention period expires.

Use the Shell to enable Single Item Recovery

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of April Summers: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "April Summers" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of Pilar Pinilla and sets the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "Pilar Pinilla" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization and set the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30


I hope this information will be helpful for you.
Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta 22 minutes ago

Thank you Allen and Shweta for your response.

Sorry for not being clearer earlier. Below are the current settings for the user.

I have already enabled SingleItemRecovery for the user and checking the 'versions' folder using Get-MailboxFolderStatistics cmdlet and MFCMAPI tool.

What I want is to get the versions folder count\size to increase, how can I get that tested.

Please  guide me through the steps to make edits on the email items to make this happen. 

User details below:

[PS] C:\>get-mailbox testuser1 | fl *Sing*,*retain*


SingleItemRecoveryEnabled     : True
RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup : False
RetainDeletedItemsFor         : 14.00:00:00



[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity testuser1 -FolderScope RecoverableItems | ft Name,FolderPath,FolderandSubfolderSize,ItemsInfolderAndSubfolders -auto

Name              FolderPath         FolderAndSubfolderSize   ItemsInFolderAndSubfolders
----              ----------         ----------------------   --------------------------
Recoverable Items /Recoverable Items 598.9 KB (613,312 bytes)                         46
Calendar Logging  /Calendar Logging  0 B (0 bytes)                                     0
Deletions         /Deletions         389.1 KB (398,446 bytes)                         28
Purges            /Purges            209.8 KB (214,866 bytes)                         18
Versions          /Versions          0 B (0 bytes)                                     0

The Versions folder stays empty irrespective of edits(saves) I make on emails located in Inbox, Deleted Items or elsewhere.

Hi,

All the information and details provided by Allen Wang is correct.

In Exchange 2013, single item recovery is disabled when a mailbox is created. If Single Item Recovery is enabled, messages that are permanently deleted by the user are retained in the Recoverable Items Folder of the mailbox until the deleted item retention period expires.

Use the Shell to enable Single Item Recovery

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of April Summers: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "April Summers" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of Pilar Pinilla and sets the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "Pilar Pinilla" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization and set the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30


I hope this information will be helpful for you.
Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta Friday, April 03, 2015 7:01 AM

Hi,

All the information and details provided by Allen Wang is correct.

In Exchange 2013, single item recovery is disabled when a mailbox is created. If Single Item Recovery is enabled, messages that are permanently deleted by the user are retained in the Recoverable Items Folder of the mailbox until the deleted item retention period expires.

Use the Shell to enable Single Item Recovery

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of April Summers: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "April Summers" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of Pilar Pinilla and sets the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "Pilar Pinilla" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization and set the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30


I hope this information will be helpful for you.
Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta Friday, April 03, 2015 7:01 AM

Hi,

All the information and details provided by Allen Wang is correct.

In Exchange 2013, single item recovery is disabled when a mailbox is created. If Single Item Recovery is enabled, messages that are permanently deleted by the user are retained in the Recoverable Items Folder of the mailbox until the deleted item retention period expires.

Use the Shell to enable Single Item Recovery

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of April Summers: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "April Summers" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailbox of Pilar Pinilla and sets the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Set-Mailbox -Identity "Pilar Pinilla" -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true

This example enables single item recovery for the mailboxes in the organization and set the number of days that deleted items are retained to 30 days: -

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox')} | Set-Mailbox -SingleItemRecoveryEnabled $true -RetainDeletedItemsFor 30


I hope this information will be helpful for you.
Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta Friday, April 03, 2015 7:01 AM

Hi,

As I mentioned above, please pay attention to below:
Versions   If In-Place Hold, Litigation Hold, or single item recovery is enabled, this subfolder contains the original and modified copies of the deleted items. This folder isn't visible to end users.

When a mailbox is on litigation hold, Exchange Online saves the original version of a message, if a user changes a message, the original version of the message is copied to a subfolder named Versions.
Because this folder isnt visible to end users, the items in it are indexed and searchable by an administrator or discovery manager. Please refer to:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh125820(v=exchsrvcs.149).aspx

Hi Allen,

So does this mean, when administrator runs 'Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity testuser1' the result would have 0 bytes listed beside 'versions' folder, even after user 'changes a message'.

Why as an administrator I'm not able to find any data in the users mailbox version folder.